Cisco Brewers' Winter Woods

In the summer of 2010, I worked for a tall ship company in Boston. I didn't actually work on the ship, just in the office, but I'd often have to go out when the ship was about to sail and throw the lines so the ship didn't take the dock with it (actually, the ship probably would have fallen apart instead, but that's another story). A couple of the crew (my now boyfriend included) thought for some crazy reason that I looked like an elf, and so I gained the nickname Alyssa of the Woods. It was odd and I didn't understand it, so I just went with it.

So, when I spied a beer from Cisco Brewing called "The Woods," I went "a-ha!" and bought it. The Woods is the name given to this particular series of beer, and the specific one I got is called Winter Woods. This was ale aged in french oak wine barrels and has an ABV of 9%, and yes, you could very much tell both of these things from how the beer tasted. This beer may not be for everyone as it has a very different taste. But if you're adventurous and love trying weird things, then you'll want to check this one out.

Color: A deep, dark, reddish brown. Think really dense wine, which is not something you'd probably picture very often. Pours lighter and clearer with a thin white head. Once the bubbles from the carbonation settle, the beer becomes denser. Could probably have this in a wine glass or some sort of open mouth glass, but once again went with regular old beer glasses (you can really tell I'm an expert on presentation here).

Aroma: Inescapable aroma right from when you open the bottle. The cork comes off and bam, you're hit with a bit of a sour smell with some of that typical wine, grape-like smell. Also seems just a tad oaky, like you're smelling the inside of a barrel. It's odd, because it does smell like a wine, but you also have some of that beer-y malt smell coming through.

First Sip: Definitely sour. The wine taste comes through a little bit too, and even though it smells like a wine, the taste is still unexpected. This is very, very different, and good. I think the sour taste comes through more as a beer-like flavor rather than a wine-like one. It's like I'm drinking a sour beer, but someone has splashed a little bit of red wine in.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, little to no carbonation. The sour taste hits the sides of my mouth--you know how you can kind of feel it when a beer is sour? It's like that. I can't really taste hops or malts, although I can smell hints of the malt (no hops though). The most prominent flavor is that sour taste, which has a bit of a fruitiness to it. It's not a typical sour fruit taste, like a lambic. The fruit part tastes more like a wine, like grapes or something similar. It also tastes a tad oaky, an there's a little bit of bitterness on the finish, but not much.

Aftertaste: Left with the sour / fruity / wine taste. Fades away slowly.

All in all, I like this beer. It's not something I would drink all the time, and I'd have to be in the mood for something unique. Like I said, this probably isn't for everyone, but I also say that you should try everything once. It's probably a good after dinner drink, and best shared with others.

Bringing in the New Year with Infinium

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, let me present to you a fizzy, celebratory collaboration between Sam Adams and Weihenstephan, the oldest brewery in the world, known as Infinium. Infinium is an example of a Biere de Champagne, a sort of cross over between beer and champagne. These usually undergo a long maturation process, and are sometimes even cave-aged in the Champagne region of France, and as we all know, Champagne is only Champagne if it's made there. (Otherwise it's sparkling wine.) They also have a special method for removing the yeast, which is called remuage and dégorgement. Remuage (riddling) involves rotating the bottles so that the yeast moves into the neck of the bottle. Degorgement (or disgorgement) is when the neck is flash frozen and the yeast sediment removed. (For more information on this style of beer, click here or here.)

For the 2011 release of Infinium, riddling and disgorgement were not used. Instead, they used a process called Charmat, "in which the re-fermentation takes place in steel tanks and the beer is gently drained off without stirring up the yeast sediment on the bottom." (From the Washington Post, see above link for more info.)

Now that you have some background on the style, lets move into the review, shall we?

Color: Dark blonde colored, with a white, foamy head. Slightly cloudy. Pours really bubbly with a huge head--there is literally no helping it. There are lighter/darker hues in the glass, depending on how the light hits it. It's like a darker champagne, and not as clear. Think a light caramel colored Champagne. Nice carbonation.

Aroma: Doesn't smell like too much to be honest. Perhaps a little yeasty and fruity, but everything is really rather subtle. I did stir it up a bit to release any aromas, and it's still very subtle. There are hints of fruit and spices, and maybe a little sourness, but nothing is over powering.

First Sip: The first thing I notice is that there is a little bit of a sour taste. It's slightly bitter, but also a little sweet at the same time. There's also hints of spices. The yeasty flavor that I thought I smelled isn't present in the flavor, which is probably as it should be considering the process they used to remove the yeast sediment. It's bubbly, but not overly so, and not as bubbly as champagne. This might have been because I traveled with it at 35,000 feet, but I dont know how much that would affect something like carbonation.

Interesting fact: Infinium is made only with the original ingredients for beer--water, barley malt, hops, and yeast. There are no other flavors added in, which makes for an interesting taste. It probably also makes for an interesting brew process.

Mouthfeel: A little more fruit taste comes through, which may come from the Noble hops, and the sweet taste is most likely coming from the malts. The sweetness isn't cloying, it's definitely subtle. It's a bit citrusy and floraly (I know these are not real words) with some bitterness tied in. Warms my throat, as it it's 10.3%, but that's the only way you'd know it was that high of an ABV. My boyfriend described it as tasting like a sour caramel, which I didn't taste as much as he did, but the flavor is there.

Aftertaste: Sweet, malt-like taste leftover afterward. I really feel it in the back of my throat.

Overall, a great drink to start off New Years Eve. I then proceeded to go out to a bar and drink a couple more beers and a glass of actual champagne, but the Infinium was the best, and a great way to start off the night.

Home Brewing Pictures!

Here are some home brewing pictures! I am far too lazy to write out many words, so I'll just let the pictures speak for me.

The ingredients. From left to right we have the recipe, priming sugar (for bottling), the grain bag, a can of malt extract, grains, yeast, more malt extract, four bags of hops, bottle caps, and The Brew Master's Bible.

Tools of the trade (not all of these were used during the first step).

Sanitizing tools of the trade, even the ones I didn't use. Because I could.

Buckets! These are very important.

Waiting for the water (Poland Springs) to come to a nice and steamy 165 degrees. It took a while.

Bag of grains. It smelled amazing. It also got little grain particles and dust everywhere.

Softening up the malt extract in hot water so it's easier to pour.

First beer of the brewing day: an Imperial Russian Stout.

It was tasty.

Meanwhile, back in the pot... Grains go in once the water reaches temperature, and stay in for 15 minutes.

Dunking the grains. It had an added bonus of wafting the smells throughout the kitchen.

The malts. You can see one is dry, and the other is gooey and really fun to play with.

Second beer! Three Philosophers.

It was also very tasty.

What the brew looks like after the malt extracts are added. You stir the mixture while you add them, but I unfortunately did not take pictures of that.

Oh my. Oh my. You can practically smell them, can't you? The two hop types were Centennial and Cascade. We added the Centennial and Cascade during the process shown here, and added in the last packet of Centennial a week later for dry hopping.

There's that stirring action! This is after the first round of hops (Centennial and Cascade) has been added. 45 minutes later we added the other packet of Centennial hops and boiled for another 15 minutes.

There are no words to describe this goodness.

Last beer of the day: a Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. Yeah, you're jealous, aren't you.

Pure deliciousness.

After all hops were added and the brew was "done," we took it outside to cool it down to a nice 68 degrees. We also added water to bring it up to a total of 5 gallons. You'd think that with 9 degree weather it would cool down in no time, but it took an hour and a half. Also, note that it is now completely dark outside, and the first picture I took was light. Yeah, it takes a while.

If you haven't guessed it by now, the beer we made is an IPA (did the amount of hops give it away?) and it's called Monument IPA.

So there you have it. After the beer had cooled down, the yeast was added. The beer was then sealed tight with an airlock and put into the spare bedroom, because it was the only place in the house that was the right temperature. We also tested the specific gravity, which came out to about 1.050. I don't know what that will translate into in terms of ABV, but I'm going to guess between 6 - 7%.

This past Sunday, I added the last round of hops (Centennial) to a glass carboy, and then siphoned the beer in (with a really awesome auto siphon, I must say). It will now sit for another 1 - 2 weeks before bottling. Then after bottling it sits for 2 more weeks. Then finally, finally, I get to taste it.

And then I'll probably do the whole thing over again.

A Home Brewing Taste Test: Belgian Cranberry Chocolate

So here it is. The first of the many, many beer reviews that I'm telling myself I have to post before I even think about reviewing another beer, although I broke that rule when I found out Westbrook Brewing came out with a beer called Mexican Cake. I also broke that rule when I bought three more bottles on Friday, although I'm only going to review two of those.

Anyway, I figured I'd start with the Belgian Cranberry Chocolate beer that I helped brew back in November. It has an official name that I've forgotten. Bearberry Ale? Something along those lines. I think it was bottled sometime near the end of November, so it's been aging for almost two months at this point. It was also the last bottle I had of that beer (sniff, sniff) because someone only gave me 6 when they told me I'd get 11.

I dont have any information on the ABV or anything like that, although I know it's up there. I also dont have pictures of the bottle because it was just a regular brown bottle. (Although I've been informed the label will have a bear with an axe on it, kind of like a coat of arms sort of thing. So just picture that in your head.)

Color: A really dark red, kind of brownish as well. This is beer is really, really carbonated, so it pours with a rather large, white head. There's also some good head retention, as I kept pouring to see if it would stay together or spill over the sides. The beer itself pours clear, but is rather dense in the glass, although its a bit clearer towards the bottom. For the color, think dark cranberry. Think cranberry chocolate bar. Think Christmas time and cranberry and chocolate. There. That's the color.

This is the only picture I have. :(

Aroma: I'm not sure if it's because it aged for a while, but it smells really yeasty, more so than the earlier ones I had. There are some hints of a sour, cranberry smell, but it mostly smells almost like a Belgian. Which is odd, as Belgians are usually paler in color. There's also some alcohol-like smell because, as I mentioned before, it has a high ABV. (Possibly more than 10%, I can't be sure.) Overall, it smells really good.

First Sip: Okay, so this isn't my very first sip, as there were 5 more before this. But it's my first sip of this particular bottle, so it counts. It does taste like it smells in that it's a bit yeasty, but there's also more of a cranberry flavor to balance out the yeast. It's also a little bit sour, and if I remember correctly, this is as a result of the yeast we used. I may be making that up. There's not a whole lot of chocolate flavor, but that's okay. I think it tastes stronger as it ages.

Mouthfeel: This is a strong beer--not only is that strong yeast taste present, you can also tell it's a high alcohol content. More of the sour cranberry flavor comes through here, as well as a little bitterness. There may be a tiny hint of chocolate, or that may be my imagination and me telling myself to concentrate really hard to see if I taste any. It's a pleasant taste, and also a bit dangerous as I could drink a lot of this. Although it's carbonated enough to generate a large head, it's not too harsh on the tongue.

Aftertaste: Hints of sour cranberry and some bitterness, maybe even some chocolate. Sticks around for a while.

So very tasty, yet so very gone.

Numbered List Update, Complete with Pictures!

Okay, really quick update in numbered list form!

1. I have tried the Belgian Cranberry Chocolate beer that I helped brew and dear sweet baby Jesus is it delicious. I first tried it a couple weeks ago and it was delicious. I just had some last night and it was delicious. Since it seems to age well, I'm going post a review for it soon.

2. I just got back from South Carolina, where I had the following beers

Arrogant Bastard Double Bastard Ale, Stone Brewing (You're not worthy!)

The Woods: Winter Woods, Cisco Brewers (ale aged in french oak wine barrels)

Black Betty, Nebraska Brewing Company (ale aged in whiskey barrels)

Infinium Ale, Sam Adams with Germany’s Weihenstephan (world's oldest brewery) (champagne-like, so that was for New Years)

Lips of Faith Series, New Belgium Brewing Company (dark sour ale)

Stone Vertical Epic, 11.11.11, Stone Brewing (brewed with chilies and cinnamon)

Stone Escondian Imperial Black IPA 15th Anniversary, Stone Brewing

Third Voyage IPA, Sam Adams Single Batch Series

There will be reviews on all of these beers, except the Stone Black IPA. What? Don't look at me like that. I did 7 reviews while I was there. SEVEN. I think my boyfriend started to get frustrated with me.

3. Also while in South Carolina, I experienced so much new beer I almost died. A black lager from Brazil, a Trappist Ale (Chimay), a stout float, new local beer, a place called the World of Beer.. it was awesome.

Also, the following exchange took place at a bar:

Me: (looking at the taps) What's the Thirsty Dog like?
Bartender: Ohh, that's really dark, it tastes like a bourbon, it's really strong and intense.
Me: Cool, can I have a taste first?
Bartender: (looks at me like I'm nuts) Are you sure? It's really very intense. It's very strong. Probably the strongest one you'll taste.
Me: Yes.
(I get my taste, sip it, tastes like AWESOME, down the rest)
Me: Yup, I'll have a glass of that.
Bartender: (Extreme disbelief) Really? You like that?
Me: Yeah, it's good. (Bartenders goes off, I turn to my boyfriend.) Does he even know who I am?

And the funny part is while it was a strong beer, I've definitely had stronger, more intense beers. Apparently females drinking intense, manly beers in the south is something of an anomaly?

4. I got a wicked awesome, totally complete with ingredients, beer brewing kit. I literally have EVERYTHING--buckets, tubes, bottler, cleanser, grains, malt, hops, yeast, EVERYTHING. I also got an entire book on beer brewing with recipes AND a beer journal where I can record tasting notes. I'm pretty much set. The first beer is going to be an IPA, and I'll start making it TOMORROW. I think it makes a couple cases, so if anyone would like to try a bottle, write me a one page essay on why you deserve one.